Category February Word of the Month

Post navigation

It is always a treat to feature a gifted artist as you have seen with Brad Sneed, Dan Burr, Cheryl Harness, and Rob Shepperson on past posts.

Robin graduated from Bennington College with a B.A. in graphic arts and botany. She has been a freelance artist since 1976 and a workshop leader in schools since 1999. She has illustrated twenty books. Robin has had her work shown in several exhibitions at museums and galleries such as the New York State Museum, the Normal Rockwell Museum, the Berkshire Museum, the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, and the Smithsonian Institution. Robin is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, the Western Massachusetts Illustrators Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In addition to creating detailed paper sculptures, Robin works in pen and ink, graphite, colored pencil, watercolor, airbrush, and pastel dust. She is also an avid knitter. >

Tonight at midnight CST we cut off submissions for February’s Word of the Month poems. We have received a bumper crop again this month and I’m glad to see so many newcomers join us.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the experience of creating a poem beginning with a single word and I look forward to seeing what you’ll do with the word for March. I haven’t chosen that word yet but we’ll all learn what it is on the last day of this month.

I suspect that many of you belong to writers groups. Such organizations often are comprised of romance, mystery, western, mainstream, short story, magazine article, and children’s writers. Who have I left out? Poets don’t usually make up a very large percent of the membership.

So here’s my pitch. All those romance-mystery-western-mainstream-story writers need to learn to express some of their thoughts poetically. Poetry helps any writer of any genre learn to condense thoughts into tight sentences. It also give them a chance to introduce a character who is a poet. Ha! See how versatile poetry is? So spread the word. A writer is a writer is a writer.

AND THE WINNERS ARE:
My thanks to everyone who participated in January’s Word of the Month challenge. We had a record number of adults and students who wrote poems inspired by “time” and shared their work for us all to enjoy.

In the adult category our January Hall of Fame Poet is talented and prolific Steven Withrow from Cumberland, Rhode Island. Second place goes to Beth Carter from Springfield, Missouri, and the third place winner is Gay Fawcett from Palm Bay, Florida. Congratulations to all of our adult winners!

After an exciting race between the two front runners, the Hall of Fame Young Poet for January is John Sullivan a 6th grader from Maumee Valley Country Day in Toledo, Ohio. Second place goes to Rachel Heinrichs, a 4th grade student at Glen Acres Elementary in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Our third place winner is another Maumee Valley Country Day student, 6th grader Sam Shekut. Good going kids! We’re very proud of you and we know that your teachers, family, classmates, and friends are too.

NOW IT’S TIME TO ANNOUNCE THE WORD OF THE MONTH FOR FEBRUARY! Road

Start your engines. Cutoff is midnight CST on February 22. Don’t miss out on the fun.

REMINDER: Today is the last day to register on my guest book if you’d like to be in the pool for a free book or a critique of poems or picture book. This must be your first time to register to qualify for the drawing. Right now there are only 21 in the pool. To register, go to my website, open Guest Book, click on Leave a Message (under my name), follow the directions to leave a message, and click post comment.